What’s In a Number?

POSTED Sep 13, 2013
By
Derek Simon

Recently, a friend of mine, Brian Zipse of Horseracing
Nation, penned a column called “I'll
take my eyes over your numbers every time.” Overlooking the fact that the title
reminds me of a bad joke from the movie “Hot Shots” (I’m kidding,
of course; there were no bad jokes in
the movie “Hot Shots”), I thought Brian’s piece was very thought-provoking.

For it addressed a handicapping topic as old as the Sport
of Kings itself: Which is more meaningful, what one sees on the racetrack or
what one sees in the pages of the past performances? In his blog, Brian discusses
an argument he had relating to Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew and arguably his
most famous son, A.P. Indy.

“An industry person recently tried to compare favorably
the running ability of A.P. Indy versus his daddy, Seattle Slew, by saying that
the son ‘had better numbers’ than his sire,” Zipse wrote. “Our brief
conversation took place online, so the other person could not see my reaction.
I laughed, and then I shook my head with a mixed feeling of sadness and
disbelief. His comment ended our brief debate, for I believed anything further
would be less desirable than sticking my forehead under a dripping faucet for
the rest of the morning.

“With all due respect to A.P Indy, who was a fine
racehorse, and then went on to be an outstanding sire, but he was in no way,
shape, or form, the runner that his father was,” Zipse concluded.

Obviously, Brian is not alone in his opinion. My guess is, the vast majority of
racing fans would agree with his conclusion in this instance… but does that mean
that observation always trumps analysis? I don’t think so.

In fact, I contend that sight is among the least reliable
of the human senses — if only because we put so much stock in it, despite not always being
able to process what we see (Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden
Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, once noted that optical
illusions should be called “brain failures, because that's what they are”).

I don’t think it’s even debatable that, generally
speaking, folks are more apt to believe something they saw “with their own eyes”
as opposed to something they read about, even in a scientific journal or some other
credible source.

Think about it: Most folks who believe in Bigfoot, the
Loch Ness Monster and/or little green men asking them to “take me to your
leader” do so because they (supposedly) saw
them, not because they found the evidence of their existence overwhelming.

What’s more, according to the Innocence Project, a
non-profit legal clinic dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people
through DNA testing, “eyewitness misidentification testimony was a factor in 72
percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S., making it the
leading cause of these wrongful convictions.”

The problem is, they aren’t always properly analyzed and
applied. Too often, people use data only to support whatever conclusion they’ve
already drawn — with no thought (or concern, really) as to what the numbers
actually show.

Take, for example, the case of former NFL quarterback
Steve DeBerg.

If one ignored context, one would have to conclude, based
on stats, that DeBerg miraculously transformed himself from a poor passer to a
highly proficient one in a single year (I can already see Tim Tebow fans
reading this with renewed interest).

(Click on image to enlarge)

DeBerg went from completing
just 45 percent of his passes in 1978, to being just one of four players (oh,
how the times have changed) to complete at least 60 percent of his pass
attempts in 1979 (Dan Fouts, Ken Stabler and Archie Manning were the other three).

But there is more to the story — much more. In addition
to 1979 being DeBerg’s second year in the NFL (no small consideration to be sure), it was
also the year that a guy named Bill Walsh took over as head coach of the San
Francisco 49’ers.

Now, prior to Walsh’s arrival, San Francisco had won more
than seven games in a season exactly four times since 1958. The team had never won a championship of any kind
since joining the League in 1946.

Bill Walsh and his innovative “West Coast” offense, which
stressed shorter, timed passing routes literally revolutionized the pro game — and
I think it’s fair to say that it salvaged the career of DeBerg, who wound up
playing until he was 44 years old.

Numbers, by themselves, can’t tell us the influence that Walsh
had. They don’t put DeBerg’s talents in perspective.Likewise, Sinister Minister’s scintillating 12 ¾-length
victory and 116 Brisnet speed figure in the 2006 Blue Grass Stakes didn’t
express how speed-favoring Keeneland’s surface was or what an easy trip the son
of Old Trieste got that day (I remember the race very well because I cashed a
nice win ticket on him).

(Click on image to enlarge)

The point is: numbers don’t exist in a vacuum. They
must be evaluated in light of other relevant factors.

However, the huge advantage that numbers provide over
mere observation is that they give us something measurable, something concrete.
Let’s be honest, Secretariat’s Belmont was not great because he won by an
eye-catching 31 lengths — lots of mediocre horses have won by daylight margins,
especially in steeplechase and hurdle events. What made Secretariat’s Belmont great was that he completed a mile and a half
in 2:24 — a mark that no three-year-old has even come close to.

Oh, and for the record: Both Seattle Slew and A.P. Indy won the Belmont Stakes as well. "Slew" was
clocked in 2:29-3/5 over a “muddy” track, while A.P. Indy was timed in 2:26
over a “good” track.Let the debate continue…

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Welcome to the TwinSpires Blog. Our contributors will be continually updating posts to offer commentary, insight, advice and expert opinions on horse racing and wagering. The goal is to help you win more and become a better all around horse player.

Contributors

TwinSpires' horse racing author, handicapper, and podcast host, Derek Simon of Denver, Colo. offers his insightful, humorous and sometimes controversial take on the horse racing industry. He even publishes the ROI on the picks he gives out.

The Director of Marketing for Bloodstock Research Information Services (BRIS) and a lifelong Thoroughbred racing enthusiast and astute handicapper, Ed joined Churchill Downs Inc. following nine years as a writer and editor with Thoroughbred Times.

A writer and editor who has been following horse racing for fifteen years. Peter has written books for the Daily Racing Form Press; Crown; and Simon and Schuster; among other publishers, and regular features in The Horseplayer Magazine.